


Synesthesia

by JaneTurenne



Category: Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Drabble Sequence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-14
Updated: 2012-10-14
Packaged: 2017-11-16 07:36:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneTurenne/pseuds/JaneTurenne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sleeping together isn't the same as sleeping together, time isn't flowing quite rightly, and Narvin isn't entirely certain what has happened to his nights...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Synesthesia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [agapi42](https://archiveofourown.org/users/agapi42/gifts).



**Smell**  
  
  
 _6)_  
  
  
Only one thing changes during the days.  Her words are still as sharp as ever; her glares pierce just as deep.  But disembodied, clinging as Romana never clings, following him as he follows her, her scent surrounds him always.  
  
She is on his clothes, in his hair.  He marinates in the smell of her.  Bathing leaves him feeling bereft, abandoned.  When fear or anger or excitement or exertion speed his pulses and heat his body, she radiates from his skin, inextricably binding herself to every moment of strong emotion he experiences.  
  
Not so much of a change after all, then.

**Sight**  
  
  
 _1)_  
  
  
Yesterday, the new Chancellor Narvin wanted nothing more than for the Lady Romana to finally learn that there are costs to her reforms.  A little more responsibility on her part, he would have argued, could go a long way.  But that was before this morning.  It was before five thousand former slaves, freed at nine bells by the President’s new anti-slavery edict, were gassed to death at nine-bells-five by the man who once called himself their owner.    
  
It was before Narvin watched Romana’s eyes as she heard the news, and saw the death toll rise to five thousand and one.  
  
  
 _12)_  
  
  
Previously, their midnight intervals have been conducted in near-perfect dark.  But tonight the moonlight paints Romana in two-dimensional planes of black and white—uncanny, ephemeral panoramas of the visible and concealed.  
  
Drunk with touching her, sick with his inability to do more, he focuses his caresses on the bright patches of her body.  He runs his thumbs along the edges of the shadows that mottle her like rain.  And when some inviolable scruple stops his fingers following a moonbeam across her thigh, there is just light enough for him to notice her strained expression as she turns away to sleep.  
  
  
 **Taste**  
  
  
 _4)_  
  
  
He awakens with several strands of her hair stuck to his lips--bitter with the flavor of floral shampoo, but with an underlying savor that he cannot help attributing to Romana herself.  
  
His involuntary startle shocks her awake as well.  She hums, and stretches, and opens her eyes.  “Narvin,” she yawns, “must you be so abrupt even about the simple act of waking up?”  
  
“I didn’t think I would sleep at all.”  
  
“Is my presence so very disturbing?”  
  
“No,” he lies, “but I couldn’t believe you’d stop talking even when you sleep.”  
  
Her laugh is a victory unutterably sweet.  
  
  
 _7)_  
  
  
Sometimes she doesn’t kiss him goodnight at all.  But overall, there is a trend about it, a slow intensification.  
  
At first, it’s his cheek.  He won’t believe that she lingers more each night.  It is undeniable, however, that one night she kisses the corner of his mouth, the next the other.    
  
He never asks for more.  He is here for her, not for his own self-indulgence.  He cannot take the kiss he wants from her.  
  
One night, only once, she gives it to him anyway, and he lies awake for spans as the taste of her fades on his lips.  
  
  
 _14)_  
  
  
Not one inch of Romana’s skin is less than sweet.  Once she was bitter, sour, hot with anger—that was the Romana he recognized.  But the moment he tastes her he is drowned in sweetness, deep and dark and _dark_ , opiate-thick and dangerous and heavy.    
  
The addiction is instant.  He cannot stop kissing her.  He kisses her throat, kisses her breasts, kisses her feet; he kisses her mouth as she guides him inside her.   He kisses her frantically as their shared pleasure builds, languorously after it crests.  
  
She smiles against his mouth, afterwards, and that tastes best of all.  
  
  
 **Touch**  
  
  
 _3)_  
  
  
She’s white-faced, shaking, and not because he’s nearly strangled her.  He scrambles upright in bed, groggy and bewildered.  
  
“Madam President?” he asks.  “Why are you...?”  
  
She looks away.  “Leela...”  She swallows.  “She used to... when everything was too much, she could tell, and she...”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“She would... sleep next to me, sometimes,” says Romana, blushing but defiantly meeting his eye.  “It... stopped the nightmares.”  
  
They stare at each other.  “I’m sorry,” she says, and stands, fleeing.  
  
“Madam... Romana.”  He catches her.  “Stay.  Please.”  
  
They both stare at his hand on her arm, right up until she stretches out beside him.  
  
  
 _5)_  
  
  
He doesn’t know what he’s doing here.  She didn’t _invite_ him, exactly, but after last night...  
  
“What is it?” she asks, as he refrains from fidgeting in her armchair.  
  
“I was wondering whether you would be... requiring my services this evening.”  
  
She raises an eyebrow.  “If you like.”  
  
“If _you_ like.”  
  
“Well, then,” she says, and heads for her bedroom with an expression that means ‘follow.’  
  
She studies him as they settle onto the mattress, then surges forwards and kisses him once, quickly, on the cheek.  
  
“Good-night, Narvin,” says Romana, and turns out the light.  
  
  
 _8)_  
  
  
He wakes in utter darkness, fifty-six nights after the first, to the feeling of her gaze.  
  
Her touch, initially, is excessively careful, fingertips scarcely brushing his cheek.  Emboldened by his lack of protest, she touches his chest, traces his collarbone.  He accepts the implied invitation; his hand splays over her back, fingers flowing through the waterway of her spine.  
  
For half-a-span their bodies move together in silent exploration, curiously and unquestioningly chaste voyages of discovery with hands that know instinctively where to go—only touching, neither more nor less.  
  
When fatigue claims its due at last, they fall asleep entwined.  
  
  
 _10)_  
  
  
He half-expects, after their conversation, that yesterday’s midnight interlude will never be repeated.  But only half.  
  
Their first night of touching was as innocent as children’s play, but only because it was so unexpected.  The following evening, as their legs slide together and hands perform intricate cartography, he hungers for more daring touch, aches to caress her neck.  The next night she rescues him by nuzzling into his neck first, opening a new universe of throats and napes, but even that indulgence brings only temporary relief.    
  
He falls asleep twice as close to her as ever, ten times as unsatisfied.  
  
  
 **Hearing**  
  
  
 _2)_  
  
  
He clears her schedule.  He handles the press.  He makes sure nobody sees her like this.  They are the only things he knows to do for her.  He does them efficiently, without complaint.  
  
He allots himself two spans of the following night.  He can’t afford the time, but he needs the sleep.  He’s too exhausted for even visions of horror to keep him awake.  And he’s too well-trained to stay asleep when the bed creaks beside him.    
  
He has his hands around the assassin’s throat before his eyes open.  And then they do, and he releases her with a jolt.  
  
  
 _9)_  
  
  
“Romana?”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Can you spare a moment?”  
  
“My schedule is very tight today, as you are well aware.”  
  
“Only a moment, Madam President.  On a... personal matter.”  
  
“Personal, Chancellor?  You’re not ill, are you?”  
  
“I... Ill?”  
  
“Indisposed, ailing, sick?”  
  
“No, not...”  
  
“Thinking of resigning your position?”  
  
“No, of course not.”  
  
“Then it concerns our arrangement, I presume.”  
  
“...If ‘arrangement’ is the word you prefer, yes.”  
  
“Do you want out of it?”  
  
“What?  No!  I...”  
  
“Are you dissatisfied in any way?”  
  
“No, I wouldn’t say...”  
  
“Then I really don’t see what we can have to discuss.  Now, if you’ll excuse me...”  
  
  
 _11)_  
  
  
They never speak at night.  During daylight they squander syllables: debating, shouting, _talking_.  None remain to span the yawning void of silence in the dark; in that strange new world, words are their only definite taboo.  
  
The quiet was no obstacle when they only slept.  But as the wakeful spans of their nights accrue, Narvin swells brimful with unspoken thoughts.  Offers and inquiries die on his lips, reform as unvoiced entreaties; solicitude transforms to need as Romana’s ever-increasing nearness erodes his self-control.  But silence _must_ be better than begging.  
  
Narvin wishes he was sure of that.  
  
  
 _13)_  
  
  
Every night of patient touching draws them closer together.  By this fifth they seem hopelessly knotted, a Gordian snarl, and Narvin is certain that his mind will crack before night’s end.  
  
It’s the silence.  He cannot stand it.  He doesn’t know what Romana wants of him, but the things he wants of her could fill a book.  His ignorance is agonizing.  She is near enough for him to breathe her breath, and he still doesn’t _know_ , and if she would only _say._..  
  
“Narvin,” Romana whispers, like thunder.  
  
He lunges for her mouth with pure, instinctive urgency.  
  
  
 _15)_  
  
  
“Why on Gallifrey didn’t you do that weeks ago?”  
  
“Why didn’t _I_?   I was here as emotional support!  I couldn’t... take advantage.  Why didn’t _you_?”  
  
“ _I_ , unless you’ve forgotten, Narvin, am your President.  You do have a habit of obeying me, generally speaking.  If I made the first move, how could I be certain you wouldn’t accept out of duty?”  
  
“You think I’d mistake an advance for a _command_?”  
  
“Difficult to say.”  She smirks.  “You can be _terribly_ thick.”  
  
She falls back, laughing, under the tender onslaught of his revenge.  
  
  
 **Time**  
  
  
 _∞)_  
  
  
As a Time Lord, Narvin can never explain to his satisfaction how Romana’s bed distorts the fourth dimension.  Fifty-six nights of sharing her sleep pass endless yet momentary.   The next  five lying awake with Romana in his arms are infinite in uncertainty, fleeting in beauty.    
  
But afterwards is more puzzling still.  Because immediately, insidiously, this becomes the life he’s always lived.  Nothing so _natural_ could ever have been otherwise.  He is his Lady President’s man.  Anything so simple and true must always have been.  
  
Time is relative, Narvin decides with a shrug, and gets on with the business of life.


End file.
